


Out of Your Depth

by spirrum



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Mermaid/Merman AU, here there be merms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-19 08:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8196979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spirrum/pseuds/spirrum
Summary: A midnight swim has unexpected consequences for Hawke -- a curious, devilishly handsome consequence who just so happens to be sporting a tail. And she knows the stories, every legend and cautionary tale spawned from the depths of the Waking Sea to push against the shore and the city's walls; stories to make a wise heart take heed, when the dark waters reach out tempting fingers to pluck at battered strings.Of course, she's never been wise or cautionary, least of all in matters of the heart. But the sea hides secrets in its treacherous depths, and Hawke has only skimmed the surface of the water.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr prompt "jellyfish: a thousand little things", which I chose to interpret literally, here's the mermaid/merman AU nobody asked for, but that you're getting because apparently I can't answer a simple prompt without going completely overboard (and tossing sea-related puns around like confetti). But a few folks wanted to see more of this, so I'm expanding it! Expect dubious sea-faring techniques, good-looking creatures of the deep, and Hawke discovering that sometimes, one must go to great and terrible lengths (or depths) for love.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

She’d once heard heartache described as a wound best healed undressed – to leave it open, untouched; to let it breathe and mend on its own, not suffocated with distractions, or drowned with drink.

But Maker, what she wouldn’t give for a distraction. Or better yet, a pint.

It’s not the broken engagement that stings the most – her pride might be a great and terrible thing, but she’s always carried her social losses with grace (and not a small amount of insufferable cheek, much to her late mother’s chagrin). No, the worst by far, Hawke thinks, is that she’d started to _care_. And affection for someone who’d toss you to the sharks without a second thought, now that is not a wound so easily suffered.

A whole month since the debacle, and the rumour mill keeps churning, but it’s not the whispers that get to her – it’s the seeming indifference, the unshaken calm of the man who’d treated her heart like a small, insignificant thing, as though Hawke herself was small, and irrelevant beyond being a stepping stone to a considerable fortune. Turning up at the same social event is one thing – turning up at one hosted at her own house speaks of a disrespect so vivid it’s bordering on the absurd.

She’s escaped the festivities with most of her dignity still intact, only one, albeit generous glass of wine in her belly, and her former fiance’s pilfered pocket-watch tucked away in her skirts for some nefarious plan she’s hoping the sea will help her hatch. Her family’s manse (hers now, after her mother’s passing, but she keeps forgetting between one grief and the next), lies in the cradle of a secluded cove, behind which Kirkwall sprawls. A sliver of beach curls almost all the way around the cove, and on the far side twin rows of cliffs cut sharply into the dark waves of the Waking Sea, the great jagged shapes like a hundred fins arching from the surface. And there’s a wildness to it that calls her forward now, away from the clink of glasses and muted laughter drifting out of the open windows, and she wanders along the beach until she’s out of sight of the house, dragging her skirts and her wounded heart, and only when she’s by the water’s edge does she allow herself to stop.

And to scream at the very top of her lungs the loudest, most outrageously colourful expletive she can think of.

The water doesn’t answer, nor does the sea beyond the cove, and in the resounding silence Hawke huffs a self-satisfied breath. She toys for a moment with the idea of tossing the pocket-watch into the depths – a final flourish, to top off her rather impressive vocal performance – but she decides against it when another idea presents itself in its stead.

It takes her a moment to consider the thought – another for that one glass of wine she’s allowed herself to give her the go-ahead, and then she’s stripping off her boots and stockings, fingers trembling from the slight chill making her hands fumble on the laces of her dress, before she’s discarded it on the beach along with the watch (and her inhibitions and good sense, clearly). And then she’s running for the water with a _whoop_ of delight that’s cut off rather abruptly by the shock of cold that hits her, and wraps around her like an iron vice.

If anyone sees, they’ll say she’s gone mad – _broken heart and broken mind, and she’s used to making public spectacle of herself, isn’t she? –_ but it’s hard to remember the party and the stares and her hand wrapped around the stem of her glass, imagining his throat bobbing with that insufferable laughter. A few quick strokes take her away from the beach, until all she can see is water on all sides and the dark sky above – like she’s floating, suspended in a void, dark and cold but honest, at least, in its unforgiving nature.  _Unlike some_ , she thinks, but the thought is a very small droplet, quickly swallowed by a bigger pool of indifference, and it’s a strangely liberating thing, being bared like this – just Hawke, and the water.

Something brushes against her bare leg, a deceptively delicate caress. It takes her a moment – a millisecond, to register the pain.

“ _Fu_ –”

The rest of the oath is drowned by a mouthful of water, and she’s flailing, lungs screaming as panic clamps around her windpipe, and now she really can’t tell sky from sea, or even the bottom of the cove from the surface – can barely think past the agony that’s gripped her leg, like fire under water, and a pressure so great it’s hard to force her thoughts past it, to the actions needed to keep her afloat.

A hand on her elbow then, strong fingers digging into her skin, hauling her up ( _is it up? or down?_ ), and the last thing she sees before the dark water and unconsciousness swallows her whole is a tiger’s pattern of iridescent stripes, like the moon glinting off the surface of a rippling pond, burning against her retina a bright and brilliant ghost of blue, blue,  _blue_ –

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She comes to feeling like she’s had a physical brawl, the pressure on her chest making her lungs hurt, but when she tries to draw breath it comes, sharp and cutting, and the shock is great enough to make her retch – as though coughing up phantom sea-water, but there’s nothing, even as she dry-heaves and flounders against the sand at her back.

Sand – _beach_. She’d gone to the beach. She’d gone to the beach and screamed at the sea, and then–

And then nothing, and in Hawke’s experience, that usually has a rather simple explanation.

“So much for not drinking,” she groans to the dawn-lit sky, rubbing a hand across her eyes as she curls in on herself. There’s sand – Maker, it’s everywhere, and her braid feels thick and grainy with it, her red ribbon a pathetic, clinging weight against her neck. _Oh, I’m going to kill Isabela._

“Indeed. I imagine you would have swallowed half the water in the cove, had I not saved you,” a voice answers then, somewhere to her right.

It takes a moment before the response registers – a pleasant, rolling baritone that washes across her skin, leaving a peppering of goosebumps.

And reminding her, rather effectively, that she’s not wearing a single stitch of clothing.

It’s a single second before she’s scrambling for something to cover herself with, because her pride might be clad in iron, but she’s far from invulnerable, and her reputation has taken enough hits this year alone to scar her for a lifetime, and the very last thing she needs is for some passing vagrant to accuse her of indecency just because she happened to pass out on the beach–

“If you are looking for your – coverings,” her companion says, halting curiously over the last word, and – _coverings?_ Hawke thinks, suddenly distracted by the odd word choice – “You will find them on the other side.”

Several things become very clear to Hawke – the first being the suddenly inescapable fact that she’s on the far side of the cove from the manse and the beach where she’d left her things, and the second – and far more pressing issue, really – is that her companion is not a man at all.

In fact – _human_ doesn’t even seem applicable, to whatever he is.

“What,” Hawke manages eloquently, voice a hoarse, air-starved rasp and eyes blinking as she takes in the sight of him – if it even is a him, perched on the rocks jutting out of the water half a pace from where she’s sprawled, naked in the sand. But he doesn’t seem to make much note of her nakedness – if anything, his assessment seems more curious than lewd, as though observing a foreign creature out of its natural habitat.

 _Of course_ , Hawke reasons, strangely detached, _he has fins._ What’s a naked woman to a man with fins?

The creature lifts a single brow, an elegant arch above glass-green eyes, and it’s a feat in itself just deciding what to focus on. The fins – well, of course they’re rather hard to ignore, and it’s hard to look away once she’s really started _looking._ A long, mottled grey tail, with sharp angles like a shark’s, tapering down to a wicked tip, touching the water’s edge as though he’s ready to dive in should the need arise. But above it, a keenly human shape – a lean torso and strong shoulders, like any other man’s, climbing to a sharp jaw and a startlingly handsome face, Hawke thinks, for a creature who is half fish.

And those eyes – like the bottles in her father’s old study, brought all the way from Antiva and filled with the rum she’d spent her sixteenth nameday getting acquainted with. _Never again_ , she’d thought then, and is tempted to make the same vow again, because this has to be a liquor-induced dream. And a very vivid one, too, because she’s not waking up, even with this awareness, and he still hasn’t taken his eyes off her where he sits, quietly observing, as though Hawke is the wild creature arisen from the depths. His hair, still-damp quicksilver bleeding to moon-pale as the sun dries it, is pulled back and gathered at the nape of his neck, like the current fashion – a bizarrely normal detail, juxtaposed against the markings on his skin, the sharp lines cutting and curving around his torso, all the way down that strange tail-fin (she remembers thinking they were blue, but they appear almost white now, not lit by the moon but the soft morning sun).

But – _he,_ she thinks, strangely determined. _Let’s go with that, to start._

“You were drowning,” he explains then, in that deep, lovely voice, as though answering a question, except Hawke is fairly sure all she’s done is gape. “It was quicker to bring you here, than to take you back.”

It takes her a moment to understand that he’s talking about her clothes – and why she’s on this side of the cove.

“Oh.”

He tilts his head. “Your kind take great care in covering yourselves,” he observes, eyes gleaming, as though he’s still trying to figure out why that might be. “But you shed yours with little concern.” He offers a brief glance to Hawke’s bare shape, more by way of emphasis than any attempt at ogling.

If she pretends that she isn’t blushing, perhaps it will make it true, although Hawke doubts it, feeling heat creep across her throat and cheeks. And she’s not shy by any means, but it’s distinctly unnerving to find yourself the object of someone’s thorough study, without so much as your underthings.

Well. It all depends on the situation, really, but this is hardly her bedroom, and he is hardly her lover.

That thought certainly doesn’t help, and she briefly entertains the idea of burying herself in the sand, but since he doesn’t appear to find her lack of dress at all disturbing, it’s probably best to just go with it.

It sounds distinctly like something Isabela would advise, although that isn’t necessarily reassuring, Hawke laments.

“You seem rather well acquainted with my – kind,” she says then, clearing her throat. Her gaze keeps jumping back to his tail, and – she can’t really point fingers, she realises, as she’s not doing a good job of keeping her eyes to herself. “And may I ask what yours is? Kind, that is.”

She’s heard the stories, of course – sailor’s tales from the Waking Sea, and the Amaranthine Ocean, of water sprites and selkies and other creatures of the deep; of helping hands to push a drowning man to the surface, or to pull him down to the darkest depths. Clearly, she’s encountered the former, friendlier sort, unless he’s planning to drag her down after sating his obvious curiosity. It’s a chilling thought, but it’s hard to feel threatened with the way he’s looking at her – intensely, but not with any visible ill intent.

And – she’s the one asking the questions, Hawke realises.

“We live below,” the creature says at length. “As your kind lives above.”

“How – poetic.”

His mouth quirks, bemusement flickering across his face, and the thought strikes her to ask if he knows what poetry is, but she swallows the urge. Perhaps she might use it to barter – information in exchange for her life, if he really is planning on drowning her later.

Except that Hawke doesn’t really know much poetry. An impressive number of bawdy sea shanties and several highly embellished anecdotes, but it’s a rather poor repertoire of entertainment, now that she thinks about it. Hardly material to charm her way out of a situation like the one she currently finds herself in.

“I watched you,” the creature says then, dragging her back to the sand on her bare ass and the scrutiny of those bright green eyes, and Hawke is almost tempted to say there’s humour glinting in them now. “You screamed at the water, and then threw yourself in. Were you hoping to challenge it to a duel?”

If this were a sailor’s tale, there’d probably be a lesson here somewhere, Hawke muses, on how to go about conversing with fae creatures – diplomatic answers, the ‘sate your curiosity and then kindly let me go, fell thing’ sort of response that all the chaste princesses of the great stories offer their beastly adversaries. Well, according to Varric, anyhow. But she’s never been one for shying away from confrontation, least of all by way of diplomacy, and something about his curiosity – not the too-bright, eager sort one might expect from a child, but a calm, almost reserved thing, as though he’s knowingly holding himself back – stirs at some rebellious part of her heart that loves to provoke.

She squares her shoulders – and tries not to think about the fact that she’s still very much naked, and that the gesture all but flaunts it. And that the morning chill make some things rather…perky. “And if I was?”

Curiously, he seems pleased by the answer. “Then I would suggest starting with a smaller opponent,” he drawls, and there’s no mistaking that humour now. “A pond, perhaps.”

Her bark of laughter startles Hawke more than it does him, but she’s loath to pull it back when his look softens into a smile at the sound. “Oh, if you knew me, you’d know I always go for the biggest opponent available. It’s more fun that way.”

He seems intrigued by that tidbit. “A minnow swimming with sharks,” he says, giving a flick of his tail for emphasis, and Hawke wonders if she should take it as a threat or not. But the smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth takes some of the edge off the gesture, turning it strangely playful.

The silence that pools in the wake of his remark is distinctly awkward, at least on Hawke’s end, and since she can’t scramble for her clothes, words will have to do.

“So,” she says, grasping for anything to fill the quiet, because if she lets it settle it’s all too easy to remember the fact that she’s still missing her clothes. And that she’s somehow found herself the object of interest of a potentially dangerous creature that could very easily, and probably very violently, drown her. “I should probably thank you, as I clearly haven’t drowned.” _Yet,_ she thinks, but finds the word sounds – teasing, and that’s probably not the way she wants to handle this. A human man might be susceptible to her charms, but whatever he is–

“You are welcome,” he says, as a human might, but – no, the tail is still there, Hawke finds, momentarily distracted by his manners, and missing the way his expression shifts as he asks, “Are you hurting?”

She blinks, but a glance at her leg jogs her memory enough to make her visibly wince. The vicious red marks wrapped around her ankle makes it look like someone’s administered a lashing – which, remembering her brilliant idea of going for an evening swim alone, is probably a fitting testament to her own foolishness.

Lifting her gaze from her leg, it’s to find concern in his expression – muted, but there still. He’s careful, she thinks, and makes a point not to glance towards his tail, still inches away from the water, as though ready to bolt. He’s not giving her everything – not the full force of his curiosity, or his worry, as though she might exploit them somehow. Although Hawke can’t for the life of her imagine what she could possibly do to put him at her mercy in her current state.

“No, it’s – well, it stings a bit, but I’ve had worse.” Against her wishes a memory crawls in, of the previous night – the stifling warmth and the press of people, a throat bobbing with laughter, and her battered heart like the cliffs sitting pretty at the mercy of the sea.

 _Perhaps I’ll put a jellyfish in his bath_ , she thinks, and feels a little better.

“The pain will pass,” he says then, pulling her back from her vengeful musings, only to find that his expression has darkened. “Take heart from that small mercy. Some wounds never fully heal.”

The way he says it suggest a keen familiarity with that kind of pain, but a glance at him reveals no more scars than Hawke herself sports – a few thin lines criss-crossing the length of his tail, but the pretty blue-white markings are the most eye-catching thing about him, aside from the obvious.

A breeze sighs in across the shore, and she shivers, arms lifting to wrap around her chest reflexively. It’s a small comfort, although it doesn’t do much to either warm her or hide anything, but then Hawke has all but given up on the latter.

“You are uncomfortable?”

He’s still watching her, and Hawke tries her best not to fidget. “A little chilly is all,” she says, and pointedly refuses to look down at herself. She tries for a disarming smile. “Of course, that’s to be expected, given that I’m stark naked.”

Had he been any other man – or _a_ man, Hawke suspects this would have been an apt moment for him to take advantage of the situation. But he doesn’t drop his gaze from hers, and it’s impossible to tell if it’s a form of courtesy or if he simply doesn’t find her form compelling enough to study longer than a first, cursory glance, but it’s a relief all the same. A small kindness when he owes her nothing, least of all her life.

But he did save her life, Hawke reminds herself. And he’d kept watch while she slept, although for any other reason than simple curiosity, it’s impossible to tell. But even if that were all, it’s more than some of her own kind might have offered, confronted with a naked, half-drowned woman on the beach.

A thought strikes her then – or an impulse, rather, and she’s voicing it before she’s given herself time to second-guess the wisdom of doing so.

“What’s your name?”

He looks surprised – taken aback, almost, and for a moment she wonders if she’s committed some sort of social faux pas. It’s gone a moment later, although Hawke doesn’t think she’d imagined it, and then his features shift, a shadow passing over his expression, as though she’s touched upon a delicate subject.

But – “Fenris,” he offers at length, tongue wrapping around the syllables with enough care to make a shiver climb up her spine, but despite the lovely enunciation, something about the way he says it makes her pause.

Not his given name, she decides. Or – given by someone, perhaps, but not his, not truly, and she so desperately wants to pry now, to ask what sort of place it is he comes from, below, but the look on his face keeps the questions firmly glued to the roof of her mouth.

Instead she reaches out a hand, and, “Hawke,” she says. Not her given name either, but then her family name has always suited her better. Marian was _his_ preference, and Marian was the girl who ran into the sea. Hawke – Hawke was the one who challenged it to a fight.

 _And promptly lost_ , she thinks wryly, although the thought lacks any real sense of defeat.

She realises he’s looking at her outstretched hand, as though unsure of what to make of it, but before she can pull it back he’s touched his fingertips to her palm, before turning it over, as though to consider her fingers.

“You have creatures by that name,” Fenris says then, lifting his eyes to the sky, a pale stretch of cloudless blue, before bringing them back to Hawke’s.

Her smile is suddenly a very silly thing, and she’s sorely tempted to ask where he’s gotten that information from. “A comparison I’ve heard far too often,” she sighs, but then, “They are birds of prey – the sharks of the sky, I suppose you might call them.”

Something glitters in his eyes and – oh, he likes that comparison, she realises, and her heart does a sudden, startling leap in her chest.

He lets go of her hand then, but gently, as though giving it back – as though holding out their hands for another’s inspection is a common human activity, and one he’s successfully participated in. And if she hadn’t been quite as distracted by her earlier reaction, Hawke might have found it endearing – perhaps even taken it upon herself to explain the concept of shaking hands.

Fenris looks out across the water then, and before she’s had the time to register the action he’s moved, a leap so sudden and so quick all she sees is the gleam of white before he’s disappeared under the water, and she catches the tip of his tail-fin before it too vanishes beneath the surface, leaving a ripple in its wake.

She’s pushed to her feet without realising, a startled noise pulling from her throat, as though to stop him, but before she’s managed a full step he’s pushed back up through the surface, far enough away from the shore to keep afloat, but not enough that she can’t hear him when he says,

“Come. I will take you across.”

There’s a glib retort at the tip of her tongue, that she can swim the distance herself, thank you very much, but then she remembers her spectacularly pathetic performance the night before, and promptly swallows the words.

And – it’s courting danger, Hawke muses, and a hundred different stories come back to her now, of fools putting their trust in fae and cunning folk promising safe passage over various crossings, bodies of water being the most treacherous of all. But even as she considers the old tales and the wary warnings that accompany them, she’s walking into the surf, the sun on her bare shoulders and an almost wild defiance in her step.

She’s waist deep when he holds out his hand – like a nobleman asking for a dance, and she wonders suddenly if this, too, is something he’s observed and learned – and she watches the droplets gathered in the dip of his palm, glittering crystals lit by the sun. There are no markings there, and instead she watches, fascinated, the natural lines running across his calloused skin.

“If you try to drown me, I’m warning you now, I’ll put up one hell of a fight,” she says, even as she curls her fingers around his – like any man’s hand, large and strong, the only real difference being the slight webbing visible between his fingers.

“I believe you,” Fenris says, with that dry, warmly tinged humour, still carefully contained, and Hawke is suddenly, desperately, tempted to see just how much is needed to make him laugh in truth.

She’s about to ask him, only half-joking, if he’s planning on holding her hand for the swim across the water, but before she’s had the chance to form the words on her tongue he’s given her a sharp _tug_ , and her yelp of surprise is as earnest as the oath that follows as he drags her down into the depths. And it’s purely instinct – and perhaps a smidgen of raw, utter panic – that allows her to grab hold and cling for dear life as he dives, cleaving through the water like a blade cutting through silk, meeting no resistance, and–

And it’s exhilarating, and fast, so incredibly fast – _like flying must feel like_ , she thinks, but underwater, and she would have laughed if it weren’t for the fact that she’d likely drown doing it.

She keeps her eyes open, stubbornly and despite the sting, but it’s all a blur of greens and blues and underwater shadows, and she isn’t given the chance to properly take it all in before they’re breaking through the surface, and she’s breathing again, sucking in air more by way of surprise than any actual need.

They’ve covered the whole length of the cove, Hawke realises with some surprise. It would have taken her a small age to cross the same distance with her own strength, a thought that should have rankled, but all she can manage is a gentle, breathless sort of awe. A flicker of something accompanies it – a sudden remembrance of those blue-green depths, and cutting through the water without a hindrance, a weightless elation expanding in her chest, filling it with warmth. And suddenly she can’t stop thinking of the glimpse she’d gotten, blurred and over before she’d had time to fully process it, but–

“Fenris,” she says, still slightly out of breath and his name still a new taste on her tongue – new, but not at all unpleasant. “When you said your kind lives ‘below’, did you mean at the bottom of the cove?” She finds it hard to believe that they’ve never been spotted before, or that the cove is deep enough to hide a world full of creatures like him. But if it is –

 _Take me there,_ she wants to say, the urge a sudden, barely contained need, but she clamps down on the impulse before it can get the better of her. _Are you asking him to drown you now?_

Fenris is quiet a moment, considering her where she treading water beside him, and Hawke recognises his expression, a keenly human one on his almost-human face – as though he’s weighing his options, and whether or not telling her the truth is in his best interest.

“There is a tunnel,” he says then, angling his head towards the water, and the slip of sea visible between the nearly touching cliffs. “It leads to the sea.” He shrugs, another strangely human gesture, and Hawke wonders if it’s something he’s picked up from watching them, or if it’s a cross-species thing. “I come here sometimes, when I am able,” he adds, carefully, as though divulging a true secret, and something about the way he says it resonates within her.

“It sounds like you’re running,” she says, before she can stop herself.

He blinks. “Running?”

“Oh,” she says. “Uh – swimming. Away from something.”

Recognition pulls at his features, his frown a lovely, severe thing, and Hawke is momentarily distracted by the sight.

Then he says, with controlled care, “Yes. Something like that.” A beat, and then, almost under his breath, “But I do not have the freedom to hide forever.”

And there’s history there – years of it, written in every line of his face and the depths of those unnatural eyes, and human or not, it’s so very clearly _not_ the sort of thing you can just pry into. Not without offering something in return, and Hawke has very little of worth to offer, aside from a damaged reputation and a growing pile of personal losses.

But she considers their situations – whatever awaits him beyond the sanctuary of the cove, and the life that lies at her back, the one she’s shaped for herself, for better or for worse.

“Then I suppose that makes two of us,” she says, quietly.

He considers her, and she can tell he’s no doubt thinking about her actions the night before – screaming bloody murder and then throwing herself head-first into the cold embrace of the water. “You were – running?” he asks, tongue wrapping around the last word with some uncertainty, but his voice was made for speaking foreign words, Hawke thinks.

“In a manner of speaking,” she says – then laughs, a short and breathless thing. “I tried swimming away from my troubles, and look where that got me.” And she allows herself to taste her next words only briefly, before daring to speak them. “Well. I can’t say I’m entirely unhappy about it.”

He looks at her then, an entirely different sort of assessment now than before, gaze cutting to the heart of her, as though she’s finally given him an opening, a hidden pathway to uncharted waters, and – and there’s something there, in those bottle-green eyes, something that makes heat drop into the pit of her stomach. And he doesn’t have to be human for her to recognise the weight behind that look, and the implication that sits in the depth of his gaze.

Her mouth feels dry, and she’s only absentmindedly treading water now, keenly aware of how close they are, and the fact that she is still very much, very painfully without a single article of clothing. But for once, Hawke finds herself unable to give a fine damn.

He’s close enough to touch – so close that she could, if she only lifted her hand, touch her fingers to his hair, clinging to his brow and neck and coloured pewter by the water. There are lines of silver-blue curving around his chin, and working their way in a fishbone pattern down his throat before fanning out, only to be distorted by the water. And she only realises what she’s done when her palm brushes against his chest, the movement as instinctual as the one keeping her afloat, and she’s one startled breath away from pulling her hand back when she feels the shudder that runs through him at her touch.

Hawke swallows thickly. “You’re not that different,” she hears herself say then, watching the ripple of water push against his skin, startlingly dark against her hand. “From this angle,” she adds, lifting her eyes to meet his. If she doesn’t look down, it’s almost easy to believe he’s not, even as she takes in the unnatural brightness of his eyes, and the sharp, elfin curve of his ears.

“You are,” Fenris says, tone a low, almost reverent murmur, and the brief flash of yearning sketching across his face makes Hawke wonder if last night wasn’t the first time he laid eyes on her. But it doesn’t really matter, because he’s looking at her as though he’s really _seeing_ her – for all she is, large as life, full of old scars and still-healing wounds but a marvel, regardless.

And no one, human or otherwise, has ever looked at her quite like that.

He’s dipping his hand into her hair then, fingers snagging in her loose braid, but it’s a small discomfort quickly forgotten with the anticipation that sits, almost at the bottom of her throat, and when he tilts her head she yields, eyes fluttering closed –

_“Hawke!”_

The call from the shore makes her eyes shoot open, and dragging her gaze away from Fenris and to Isabela in the distance, sauntering down the footpath towards the water. And when she looks back, he’s gone, not even so much as a tremor on the surface to signal his departure, and for one staggering moment Hawke wonders if she’d imagined it all.

She’s still treading water when Isabela stops at the beach, one hand on her hip and the other shielding her eyes from the sun that’s climbed high in the sky.

“Fancied a swim, did you?” she laughs, nudging the toe of her boot against the pile of discarded clothes by her feet. “A bit bold, this early in the morning. Families take walks here, you know.”

Brought back to herself fully, Hawke has managed to cover the final distance towards the shore, and when she stumbles out of the surf with a sudden, inexplicable gracelessness, limbs loose and ankle stinging like all hell, Isabela is threading her shift over her head, water seeping through the thin cotton almost immediately, but the rest of her dress follows suit before she’s had time to look properly indecent.

“There you are,” Isabela says, quick fingers lacing up the back of the dress, as Hawke tries in vain to gather herself. “Public indecency is more my scene – Varric’s, if he’s got enough drink in him and not a mind to pull his shirt closed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that you’re loosening up your laces a bit, but there is such a thing as the right place.”

Hawke is staring at the boot in her hand, finding it very hard to dredge up her usual wit to respond. There’s an urge to glance behind her, towards the water – to see if there’s a shiver on the surface, a flash of silver-white, or if that, too will just be her imagination.

“We missed you at the party,” Isabela says then, copper eyes glinting curiously as she casts a searching glance to the water behind Hawke. “Had an interesting night out here?”

“I don’t remember most of it, to be honest,” Hawke says, carefully. “I passed out on the beach.” Which is close enough to the truth to pass her lips smoothly.

But Isabela’s grin is a quick, keenly knowing thing. “Didn’t think you’d had that much to drink – I only saw you have the one glass, and you were sipping at it all evening.”

Despite herself, Hawke smiles. “Oh, I drank a bit more than that.” _Or tried to, anyhow._ And perhaps she had had more to drink than she remembers, or her imagination is truly something, to have conjured her strange sea-creature, with all his half-human quirks and complexities.

 _Broken heart and broken mind_ , she thinks, something in her chest clenching at the thought – not grief for her heart-wound, but for the fact that she’d conjured him to help her feel better and he had, only to vanish like a wraith, as much a figment of her imagination as the affections of the man she’d once been set to marry. That’s an old loss now, but she finds with some surprise that the new one sits with equal weight in her chest, for all that it’s an imaginary hurt.

A hand in her hair then, and Hawke starts –

“Lost your ribbon at cards with Davy Jones?” Isabela asks, giving one dark lock an inquisitive tug. “Your mother’s kerchief, wasn’t it? You’re usually so careful with that.”

Startled, she touches her fingers to her hair – to the half-unravelled braid, thick with sand and saltwater, and the ribbon that had been there only moments before; she’d felt it against her neck, heavy with water, but now all that meets her searching touch is her hair, wet and dripping and curling around her fingers.

And – she remembers suddenly, vividly, his fingers tangling in her braid, the curl of them against the back of her neck–

She’s grinning, Hawke realises, by the bemused expression that crosses Isabela’s face, before it gives way to a grin of her own, and – “My regards,” she purrs, “To whatever sea-nymph stole away with your ribbon and left you looking like they did you a favour.” A wistful sigh, and then, “It’s been ages since the sea tossed me anything worth stripping buck naked for.”

Then she’s turning, and – catching sight of something on the ground, fishes up the silver chain with the pocket-watch from where it lies, half-buried in the sand. “Oooh, this is a pretty thing.” Turning it over, she blinks, and upon catching sight of the engraved insignia, tosses a knowing look at Hawke. “Oh, Hawke. A petty thief now, as well? I’ve been a bad influence on you.”

“Your regret would be more convincing if you actually sounded regretful,” Hawke counters, wringing water from her hair. But the words are curved around a smile, and there’s a tremble in her hands – _relief,_ she finds, the feeling both new and startling in its honesty, and the tightness in her chest unfurls enough to let her breathe.

Isabela shrugs, and when Hawke starts towards the footpath, falls into step beside her. She gives the silver chain an idle swing, the heavy watch catching the gleam of the sun, burning a white mark against Hawke’s retina for a single instant. “You know I make it a point not to have regrets,” Isabela says, and, “Speaking of”, she adds, giving the pocket-watch a rattle for emphasis. “What’s your plan for this little trinket? You could buy a boat with this kind of silver. Not a very big boat, mind you, but a pretty sloop shouldn’t be hard to wrangle.”

She’s about to say the words – _pawn it, melt it down, I don’t care –_ when she takes a moment to consider it, the gleam of silver in the sun, swinging from Isabela’s fingers. And she thinks of a sloop and the open sea – of waves against the prow, cutting across the surface, a shadow above the world waiting far below – the one he’d given her a glimpse into, as brief as his presence in her life.

“Feel like going fishing?” Isabela asks, grinning, and when she holds out the pocket-watch Hawke curls her fingers around it, the silver cool against her palm. Her mind flashes to Fenris again, his many near-human gestures, and the look in his eyes – as though he’d never seen something quite like her, but not because of her lack of fins.

“Something like that,” she muses, smile flashing quick and bright, and for the briefest of moments her grief feels miles away.

They pause at the top of the rise, Isabela a few paces ahead of her as Hawke turns towards the cove, allowing her eyes to roam across the water towards the Waking Sea stretching beyond the cliffs, searching for a gleam of red amidst the blue.

“You know, they say there are things in the deep that’ll pluck your heart right from your chest,” Isabela muses. “They’ll pilfer it like a pretty jewel – even wear it like one.”

“What a cheerful image.”

“Isn’t it?”

Hawke’s smile softens, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the water. “Any stories of hearts given willingly?”

“Oh, hundreds. What did you think the whole sailor business was really about? We’ve all given our hearts, one way or another.”

“Even broken ones?”

Isabela laughs. “Oh, love,” she sighs, slinging an arm around Hawke’s shoulders, her warm skin and dry shirt a welcome embrace, and Hawke feels a little better, and the weight in her chest a little lighter, as Isabela croons,

“Those hearts make for the very best stories.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is becoming a delightful escape from a busy semester. I hope you'll enjoy reading it just as much as I did writing it!

The bustle of the Kirkwall docks rises and falls around them like the waves against the wharf, a push-and-pull of orders shouted across crowded decks, and laughter ringing above the cacophony of heavily tinged Antivan and Fereldan accents mingling with the usual Marcher lilt. But their corner of the docks lies mostly quiet – there’s no one disembarking, and other than the occasional overseer passing along the anchored ships, it’s just the two of them.

The sloop bobs in the water, a pretty little thing, and at odds with the lumbering shape of the trading vessel floating at its side. Isabela lets slip a keening sort of noise, a sigh bordering on a moan. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?”

“Hmm,” Hawke agrees, eyes skimming along the gleaming dark wood, and the elegantly carved letters etched deep into the planks. “ _The Champion_?” she asks, tone a tinge dubious. “Seems a bit excessive, for such a small thing.”

A snort from beside her, and Isabela crosses her arms over her ample chest. “Would you like me to give you the run-down of the many merits of _small sizes_?”

“Please don’t.”

“Are you sure? Because–”

“And here I thought you loved _big_ boats,” Hawke interrupts, before Isabela can ask – although on second thought, she’s not exactly steering the conversation towards safer waters.

Isabela laughs, and waves a hand, the gold rings on her dark fingers catching the light of the morning sun. “Big boats, small boats – a predilection for one doesn’t mean I have no love for the other. I mean just look at this _beaut_ – the lithe curves, the slender mast. The smooth, polished wood. Oooh, I’d love to take her out for a good time.”

“…we are still talking about boats, I hope?"

“Hmm?” And, grin turning wicked, “Why, Hawke, where has your mind gone?”

Hawke only slides her a dirty look, before turning her gaze back to the boat in question. “Suppose I buy it.”

“As you should.”

“And we take it out.”

“Would be a shame not to.”

Hawke turns, head tilted. “How do you propose it’s going to work, my paramour being water-bound, so to speak?”

Isabela’s eyes are gleaming, Hawke notes. _That’s never a good sign._ “I have a few ideas.”

“Oh?”

“You’ll see,” she says, with that clever, cutting smile that Hawke has seen a hundred times before, and which usually heralds a bar brawl. And usually one where the numbers aren’t in their favour.

“Somehow, I’m not the least bit reassured.”

Isabela only laughs. “You know me better than to expect reassurance,” she quips lightly, giving Hawke’s shoulder a fond pat. “Now then,” she says, turning towards _The Champion,_ hands on her hips.

“What do you say we see what this girl’s made of?”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They take the boat out beyond the cove, Isabela making quick work of the actual sailing, sea-legs dancing across the deck, the movements light and easy as though she could perform them all in her sleep, whereas Hawke feels drunk without drink, hands fumbling with the ropes, and trying to keep up with Isabela’s commands.

The day is a brilliant blend of blues and yellows – the sun at its noontime mark, a sentinel pearl in a stretch of cloudless sky, and with the salt of the sea in her nose and the steady bobbing of the sloop, Hawke feels – oddly liberated, despite the ache in her muscles and the slight curl of nausea in her belly.

It’s been two weeks since the party – since her midnight swim, and everything that transpired after. The jellyfish burn is little more than a bad memory, a pale crossing of scars around her leg, but like her missing ribbon it’s a reminder, however small, that she hadn’t hallucinated the entire encounter. And in the long days that have followed, it’s been what’s kept her determined to pursue the clues he’d given her, intentionally or not, before he’d vanished from her life as quickly as he’d appeared.

Touching the back of her neck where her hair coils, neatly braided, Hawke allows herself a moment to think about him – those bottle-green eyes, and his strange behaviour; his almost-human gestures, and wry humour. _Where did you go, Fenris?_

She’s been down by the water several nights, wandering along the beach, skirting the water’s edge, but with no luck. And she’d been tempted more than once to repeat her actions of that fateful night – to throw herself back into the surf, but a strange caution had kept her back, the memory of the watery dark dragging her down, and the thought of what would happen if he wasn’t there to save her a second time.

“That frown would put your brother’s to shame,” Isabela says, and when Hawke blinks it’s to find her face swimming before her vision, grin firmly in place, but her copper eyes holding concern. “Not having doubts, are we?”

Hawke lets loose a breath – not quite a laugh. “About this whole, harebrained scheme? No, what could possibly compel me to think we’re chasing a fantasy, out on a boat in the middle of nowhere, and with no plan in mind?” On the surface, her attempted breezy attitude yields few of her secrets, but for someone who’s known her as long as Isabela, it’s no doubt as transparent as glass.

But it doesn’t wipe the smile off her friend’s face – quite the opposite, actually. “No plan? And here I thought we were going fishing.”

“I didn’t think you were being serious about that.”

“Me? Darling, I never joke about fishing for–”

“Please don’t say it.”

“– _booty_. Even the scaly, broody sort.”

Hawke sighs, wiping her fingertips across her brow, feeling the slight gleam of sweat, and the curl of her damp hair. “I honestly don’t know whether to be thankful that you believe me, or afraid that I’ve not only convinced myself, but someone else as well, about something that doesn’t even exist.”

Isabela’s look softens at that. Hawke had told her the details about her meeting with Fenris, although thinking back, she’s not sure if it was done with the hope that she would simply tell her it was the work of jellyfish poison, and the midnight magicks of the moon. Perhaps it would have been easier, if she had.

But she hadn’t – instead Isabela had merely nodded, and accepted the story without further question. “I told you,” she says now, echoing words spoken long weeks ago. “I know the sea. I know it hides more than fish and sunken treasure.”

“Are you sure you’re not just indulging me out of pity?”

Isabela snorts. “That sentence implies I’m prone to pity, and you know I don’t waste my time with that kind of swill. And you’re not a woman who inspires pity, Hawke, or have you fallen so low in your grief that you’d rather people coddle you?”

Hawke cuts her a look. “You know the answer to that.”

Isabela’s grin is fierce. “Damn straight.” Then, something in her gaze shifting – “I would have helped you even if I had doubts,” she says then. “If for no other reason than the righteous self-satisfaction at seeing how little thought you’ve spared these past few weeks, to that tosser who double-crossed you.”

Hawke blinks. Then – “Oh,” she hears herself say, genuine surprise flickering within her. She hasn’t thought about him in days. “You’re right.”

Isabela shrugs. “I usually am. So you can rest assured it’s not pity that’s inspired me to help look for your handsome water nymph.”

Hawke laughs, startled, remembering his frown, and the wicked tail. “Not an epithet I’d ascribe to him – it implies frolicking, and sea-shells in his hair.”

“Can you frolic underwater?” Isabela muses, then with a shrug, “And as I’ve yet to lay eyes on him, my imagination will have to do. And you did say he _glowed_ – I can’t be held responsible for what images that description inspired.”

“Evidently.” But – she’s thinking about it now, trying to piece together an image of him from all her impressions. His fin, tapered like a shark’s, and his mottled, green-grey colouring. She can’t remember the exact arrangement of his markings, only the fishbone pattern rising up the length of his throat, and the small dots on his forehead behind the fall of his pewter-coloured hair. _A truly fey creature_ , she thinks, with the press of her knuckles against her abdomen, to still the jittery jump of her insides at the memory.

Isabela leaves her under the pretence of checking on the sails, and Hawke allows her gaze to sweep the stretch of water and sky. In the distance she can spot the rising cliffs, and the sliver of the cove beyond – the hill where her manse lies nestled, and the strip of beach curling along the shore below. Her siblings will wonder where she’s gone off to, although she’s been known to favour her solitude, and disappear at intervals. Varric will have a likely story ready, no doubt, and there’s a pang of regret within her that she’d opted out of telling him the truth behind their voyage. Aveline, too, would have liked to know, but then Aveline – practical, _sensible_ Aveline – would have applied enough pressure to that thin slip of reason within Hawke, until she’d seen the venture for the fool’s quest it no doubt is.

Eyes closed, she’s listening to the push of the water against the ship’s hull, letting her thoughts drift. They have no plan – not beyond locating a boat and trying their luck on the open sea, anyway, although something in Isabela’s grin had hinted at information Hawke has not been made privy to. Frankly, though, Hawke is afraid to ask just what lies in store for her, wherever they’re headed. South across the Waking Sea lies Ferelden, but she doubts a country known for its dog lords would offer them any clues with regard to the existence of merfolk. Sunny, seaside Antiva, perhaps, but that’s a long ways off, yet.

There’s a splash then – a disturbance in the water that’s not a wave’s gentle lap against the sloop’s side, but something else, although when Hawke opens her eyes the scenery is the same, and nothing has stirred in the water. _Probably just a leaping fish._

“Hello?” a mellow voice rises up from somewhere below, and Hawke blinks, brows lifting when the voice adds, “Isabela?”

And, “Right on time,” Isabela says, walking up behind her, and when Hawke shoots her a thoroughly puzzled look, she only laughs, leaning forward over the side to look down into the water. “Well met, kitten.”

Startled, Hawke follows suit, bent over the railing to peer into the depths, only to find a pair of large green eyes staring back, sitting pretty in a pale, elfin face.

“Oh, hello,” the – _not-human_ , Hawke realises – greets, a cheerful chirp, eyes curving with her smile. Her dark hair is braided with small shells and sea-weed, and Hawke sees the finely curved ears peeking out from the black mass. “You must be Hawke. Isabela’s told me so much about you – you’re so tall! And you’ve got legs, too – but of course you do, you’re human. Do you swagger? Oh, I’d love to see you walk, humans are so _fascinating_ , they’ve all got different walks. Varric lumbers – you know, I’ve learned so many different words for walking. Strutting, lumbering, ambling, oh I’d love to be able to walk. I wonder what kind of walk I’d have.”

From beside her, Isabela lets slip a breathless laugh. “Your enthusiasm is something else, kitten. Promise me you’ll never lose it.”

The creature – the mermaid, Hawke realises, catching a glimpse of her tail beneath the water; a deep, emerald colour – blinks. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Isabela – what exactly is a ‘kitten’?”

Isabela grins. “A darling household creature. Looks sweet and cuddly, but get too complacent and they’ll set their claws in your leg.” Turning to Hawke, eyes gleaming, “Hawke, this is Merrill. Merrill, meet Marian Hawke.”

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Merrill says, and Hawke can only nod dumbly, gaze caught and held by the strange sight. She’s at once like Fenris, and not – a different tail, iridescent scales glimmering below the water, and her fins lovely and decorative. But Isabela’s words linger at the back of Hawke’s mind, taking in the pale, slender shoulders rising from the water, and the bright, seemingly guileless eyes. _What claws are you hiding, exactly?_

She inclines her head to Isabela. “Befriended a lot of mermaids lately, have you?” she asks then, voice a tinge accusatory. “If I’m right in guessing that this was a pre-planned thing.”

Isabela only regards her coolly in turn. “I have friends above, can’t I have friends below, too?”

“Oh, I’m not surprised that you have them. I’m only curious as to how you came about this one in particular,” Hawke says, and tries not to feel a stab of hurt at the fact that Isabela had known for certain she hadn’t conjured Fenris all by herself, seeing as the evidence that there are more of his kind is staring up at them now, expression curious.

“I found her at the docks,” Isabela says then, much to Hawke’s surprise, although she’s not sure what she’d expected. “Following a rumour. Varric has them, you know, if you know which questions to ask.”

Hawke finds she isn’t surprised to hear that, at least – there isn’t anything that goes on in Kirkwall that escapes Varric’s notice, and if a mermaid has been spotted frequenting the docks, he’d have surely found out about it.

“And you asked the right questions, I take it?”

Isabela shrugs. “After a fashion. I told him about your – run-in, shall we say, with a certain water nymph. I asked if he had any clues, and he sent me down to the docks, where lo, I found Merrill. And would you know, she happens to know your heart-thief.”

Despite her attempt at keeping a cool composure, Hawke’s breath catches in her throat, and she turns her gaze to Merrill, still watching them curiously. “You know Fenris?”

Merrill nods, but something passes over her features. Not worry, exactly, but something close, although whether it’s for Fenris or for her own sake, Hawke can’t be sure. “Yes. Well – not personally, but I know of him. Most – most of us do.”

Hawke doesn’t know what to make of that, but fierce hope outweighs her concern, and in her next breath she’s pushed the thought firmly from her mind. “Could you – do you know where I could find him?”

Merrill nods again, the gesture a careful thing. “Yes. But…” She looks at Isabela. “Did you tell her?”

Hawke turns to Isabela, only to find her waiting with an expression she can’t place. “Tell me what?”

Isabela crosses her arms over her chest. “You’ve already entertained the thought yourself, if I know you. And I do. This ship will bring us across the sea quick as a breath, but that’s not the way you need to go, if you want to have any hope of finding your elusive merman.” She gives a sweep of her arm towards Merrill and the water. “We need to go down below.”

Hawke looks at her, then at Merrill. “Below,” she says, enunciating the word carefully. “As in, below the water. In the sea.” And she speaks the words clearly, as though to drag their meaning out of each syllable, so she can’t be mistaken as to what Isabela is proposing, as outrageous as the suggestion is.

She thinks of when she’d clung to Fenris, and how it had felt like flying – that strange world that she’d only caught a glimpse of before she’d emerged back in her own, sun-tinged and bright. It’s a thrilling thought, to see it again, but another concern looms, larger than her curiosity – of that watery darkness, and her lungs filling with sea-water.

Her chest feels heavy just thinking about it, but when she looks at Isabela again, there’s a small smile on her face. “One step ahead of you, pet – Merrill happens to deal in magicks.”

“Magicks?” Hawke wonders why that isn’t remotely reassuring.

Merrill nods, seemingly eager to explain. “Sea-tricks, mostly – calming storms, or spurring them on. Changing the currents, and the tide.”

“And the other thing,” Isabela points out.

“Oh! Yes. I can change other things, too. Fish, humans–”

“Humans,” Hawke echoes, and looks at Isabela, who grins.

“What? I’ve always wanted a tail.”

“No you haven’t.” And she tries to pretend she doesn’t sound quite as hysterical as she fears.

“Well I want one now.” Isabela returns Hawke’s incredulous look with an ever-widening smile. “I’m sure it’s completely safe. Right, kitten?”

“Well–” Merrill begins, and when Hawke looks at her, offers a sheepish smile. “It’s not _un_ safe. I don’t think. _Asha’bellanar_ did it once, but the other way around – she gave a mermaid legs so she could be with her human lover, she told me so herself. Isn’t it romantic?”

Hawke doesn’t know who this Asha’bellanar is, but fears asking. Instead she considers Merrill searchingly, looking for deceit, but finding none. “And it’s as easy as that? A swish of your tail, and we’re breathing underwater?”

Merrill purses her lips. “Not – exactly. It requires you to give up something in return.”

“Oh does it?” No – not hysterical, surely _not._

A nod, as though they’re talking about a simple money transaction, which Hawke sincerely doubts. “Yes. A sacrifice – your voice or your eyesight, or ten years of your life. That sort of thing.”

Hawke is sure her jaw must be hanging, but couldn’t have schooled her face into nonchalance if she’d tried. “ _Ten years of my life_?”

“You don’t have to offer that, of course!” Merrill is quick to add. “I think the mermaid did – the one who wanted to be human, but…it needs to be something of that value. It’s not a simple spell. Or—or technically legal. I don’t think. It’s not like it’s been done often.”

Hawke looks at Isabela, who meets her gaze squarely. “How badly do you want to find him?” she asks, voice level, and Hawke can only shake her head, a rebuttal on the tip of her tongue –

“He – Fenris, that is,” Merrill says then, dragging Hawke’s attention back from the despair it’s dived into. “His master isn’t a kind creature. It won’t be easy, if you go looking for him.”

Hawke frowns. “His master?”

Merrill nods, bright eyes subdued now. “Danarius. He has magic, like I do, but…” she trails off, seeming uncertain of how to phrase herself, to make Hawke understand.

“I take it he doesn’t use it to calm storms,” Isabela says, voice dropping in volume to something calm and deadly quiet – the voice that had once told Hawke of a ship full of slaves, “cargo” she’d been told to deliver, and the debt still carries for her choice to conveniently misplace said cargo.

And then, a different memory _– I come here sometimes, when I am able._

_It sounds like you’re running._

She looks at Merrill, the dark braids clinging to her pale skin, and her luminous eyes. And she thinks of the help offered, and the conditions stated, not for any personal enjoyment of Merrill’s, but simply matter-of-fact.

_Nothing in this life comes without a price, heart. And you must always know what you’re willing to pay,_ her father says from the depths of her memory, with that keen knowledge she had never truly understood. Although – Hawke thinks of Fenris now, somewhere below in the watery depths, in that world that’s at once so far out of her reach, and close enough to touch.

_Will you run from this, too?_ She wonders if he’d gotten into trouble for helping her. What manner of creature is this master that holds him, and for what reason?

Something knots in her stomach at the thought, and what a strange terror, to feel on behalf of a creature she’d met once – a creature who’d saved her from drowning, and stolen her ribbon and her heart in one fell swoop.

She looks at Merrill, still regarding her curiously from the water. And – fey creature or not, Merrill’s eyes look like any human’s; fiercely intelligent, but also kind.

Fenris’ had been, too. Kind, and so terribly, achingly sad.

She looks at Isabela next, to find the echo of her earlier question in her expression, a calm, wordless challenge.  _How badly do you want to find him?_

“Alright,” Hawke hears herself say, releasing a tightly held breath. And she’s surprised to find that it’s not fear for her own sake that makes her stomach clench, as she looks down at Merrill again. “My voice,” she offers, and to her relief, it doesn’t tremble when she speaks. “Will that be enough?”

Merrill nods, and looks at Isabela, only to find her looking towards her horizon, a pensive expression on her face that looks oddly out of place, but – “My motherhood,” she says at length. Then, “Well. Whatever potential for it there is to be found, for all I know I’m barren as a Blight-ridden field.” At Hawke’s look, her grin flashes, quick and fierce. “A small sacrifice on my part. Alas, I’m not ready to give up my best years.”

Hawke laughs, a mirthless sound, and wonders idly if this is the last time she’ll be able to make it.

“Is it reversible?” she asks, looking down at Merrill.

She purses her lips. “Possibly.”

“ _Possibly_?”

Isabela waves her off. “There’s only one way to find out,” she says, a brow arched in challenge. “Unless you’d like to test it on someone else first?”

“You know I wouldn’t.”

“Of course I do,” Isabela counters. Then, the corner of her mouth lifting, her smile less sharp, “It’s one hell of a plunge, Hawke. You sure you’re up for it?”

Hawke squares her shoulders. “Well. I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.”

Isabela laughs. “And thank your Maker for that – life would be a lot less interesting without you in it to stir up trouble.” Turning to Merrill, Isabela spreads her arms wide. “Do you worst, kitten.”

Merrill blinks. “It’s not going to hurt.”

“I know, dear – it’s a figure of speech.”

“Oh.”

But Hawke watches, heart hammering against her breastbone, as Merrill dips below the water, the tip of her tail breaking the surface and sending silvery droplets dancing in a wide arc. Forcing her breath through her nose, she considers the ripples left in the surface, and tries to imagine what lies at the bottom – if there is a bottom, where they’re going.

A moment later Merrill is re-emerging, small fists closed around something Hawke can’t see. But holding her hands out, scarred palms upturned, she reveals the two apple snail shells coiled at the heart of her palms, one almost black and one a deep, golden brown.

Hawke draws a last breath for courage, and reaches out to take the dark shell when Merrill offers it, but jerks in surprise when that small hand clamps around her own, slender fingers gripping with surprising insistence and the shell digging into her skin, and she isn’t given the chance to let loose an oath before there’s a strange _tug_ somewhere at the bottom of her throat, and a gleam of brilliant light that hurts her eyes.

Isabela echoes her surprise with far more verbal colour, but Hawke isn’t given time to look towards her friend, distracted by a surge of what can only be magic coursing along her skin, then beneath it, as though passing through her very veins, until her skin feels at once too large and too tight for her bones.

It’s – not painful, exactly, but not comfortable either, and then she’s toppling, as though her legs have seen fit to stop working, sending her crashing to the deck, felled like a tree and scrambling for purchase, and in an attempt to move her legs–

_Sweet mother of mercy_ , Hawke thinks, looking down at herself, and the tail that stretches out where her legs used to be. It’s a deep burgundy colour, and with lovely, flowing fins, like those of a fighting fish, but – _shit,_ she thinks, the reality of what she’s agreed to finally sinking in, but when she tries to form the words, her tongue wraps uselessly around the silent syllables, and all that escapes is a strangled, wheezing gasp.

“Are you alright up there?” comes Merrill’s voice from the water, and there’s a half-hysteric laugh pushing up Hawke’s throat, but no sound leaves her when she tries to let it loose.

“We’re just fine,” Isabela answers for her, and Hawke is momentarily distracted from her own predicament into looking across the deck.

For her part, Isabela seems to be having none of Hawke’s troubles adjusting, having pushed herself into a sitting position, her tail a resplendent, sapphire blue, but bearing none of the frilly fins of Hawke’s own.

She laughs, watching Hawke struggle to lift herself up. “Good grief, Hawke, you’ve got less grace in this form than you do with legs.”

Hawke offers a crude hand-gesture in response to that, but manages to lift herself up on her elbows. Some of her hair has escaped from its braid, falling into her eyes, and she waves at Isabela, as though to ask -- _and speaking of legs, how were you thinking we would get off this damn boat, exactly?_

“Come on, Hawke, you’ve gotten yourself out of worse fixes,” Isabela says, and makes to drag herself towards the railing. “Now this,” she laughs, breathless, “reminds me of the time I staged a mutiny with both legs bound and my hands behind my back. Ah, good times.”

Hawke only shakes her head, and is for once glad she doesn’t have the ability to ask Isabela to elaborate. But reaching for the banister, dragging her entire, useless weight with her, she’s sorry she doesn’t have the means to let loose the string of curses racing through her mind now.

A splash alerts her to Isabela’s success, and – damn her competitive instinct, but she can’t let herself be bested so easily, and it’s with effort that she makes to hoist herself up and over the side, wiggling her tail to gather momentum–

– and then she’s falling, and for a moment she can’t tell sea from sky as she plunges towards one or the other, before the water finally swallows her up.

At first it’s too dark to see, a blend of shadows that she can’t tell apart, and panic pushes up her throat, sudden and unavoidable, but – but there’s no pressure on her chest, no pain. In fact, it’s effortless, not like breathing but – almost. And then the shadows aren’t quite so dark and ominous, but yielding different sights – jutting rocks and bright corals, and schools of colourful fish, darting about like butterflies, or birds against the autumn sky, if the sky were inverted and she was floating in it.

A hand on her shoulder, and she turns – that too almost effortless, as though the water isn’t even there, as though she really is suspended mid-air – to find Isabela’s grin. Her hair has come loose of its kerchief, floating about her like a cloud of ink, but her jewels are still attached, gleaming like a lost treasure in the depths, the heavy gold choker around her neck sitting just above the arch of scales covering her torso.

“This is almost modest, for me,” she snorts, patting herself. The scales do little to hide her generous curves, but Hawke is inclined to agree, and is glad of it, touching tentative fingers to her own waist, and the strange hardness where there used to be only skin. _I for one am glad I haven’t got everything on display._

“Yes, well _you_ would, being you,” Isabela says, and Hawke shoots her a look.

“How do you feel?” Merrill is asking then, and Hawke starts, only to find her floating at her elbow, green tail dipping down towards the bottom, and looking more at place amidst the sea-weed and the fish than Hawke feels, even with her own tail firmly in place. _Maker, it’s still there. This definitely isn’t a hallucination._

Opening her mouth, she’s reminded of her new impediment, and is quick to close it. Instead she lifts her hand, and wiggles it, as though to say – _I’m fine. Or as well as can be expected,_   _given that I have a tail, and no voice._

“Ah, the unique Hawke brand of optimism, applicable even with hand-gestures,” Isabela sighs. “A good thing you didn’t sacrifice that.”

Hawke slides her a dry look. _Yes, what a loss that would have been._ Then she lifts her eyes to the surface, and the boat bobbing in the water above, gaze skimming along the chain connected to the anchor buried at the bottom. She looks at Isabela next, pointing to the anchor. _When did you drop that?_

Isabela grins. “When you were busy reminiscing about your heartache. I figured it wouldn’t do to let this girl float away. We’ll be back before long, after all.”

_Hopefully,_ Hawke thinks, regarding the anchor pensively.

“Speaking of aching hearts,” Isabela says then. “Should we get going? There’s a lot of sea to cover.”

“Just a minute,” Merrill says, before she’s proffering something, and wrapping her fingers around it, Hawke realises it’s the snail shell. It’s about the size of a plum, and there’s a string wound through it now. It looks like a trinket a peddler from Antiva would sell at the Lowtown market, pretty and inconspicuous, but for the fact that Hawke is fairly certain it contains her voice.

“Is that fishing wire?” Isabela asks, and Merrill nods, with that strange delight Hawke can’t quite wrap her mind around.

“I got it at the docks. It’s very practical, and so much better than sea-weed – you humans make so many curious inventions.”

Isabela regards the gold-brown shell, curling her fingers around it thoughtfully. “It’s a very pretty treasure, kitten, but I’m more for heavily embellished jewellery. I’m afraid this will look a bit out of place around my neck.”

Merrill blinks, but then – “Wait here.” And she’s gone before Hawke can blink, vanished into the deep and leaving them looking at each other curiously. At her questioning look, Isabela shrugs, her expression one of bemusement, before it softens into something else.

“How are you holding up, really?”

Touching her fingertips to her throat, Hawke allows her gaze to fall on the shell in her grip. Then, with wry smile, she gives a shrug. _Honestly? Better than expected._

Isabela looks like she might say something, but then Merrill is back, her arms full of sea-shells, and Isabela barks a laugh. “Oh, what’s all this?” she asks, giving the mermaid a look that’s caught somewhere between desperate fondness and exasperation. “You didn’t get these for the sake of my poor old vanity, did you?”

Merrill only beams. “It’s not as pretty as your necklace, but – you shouldn’t lose the shell. If it falls into the wrong hands–”

“It means bad business. Got it. Although for the life of me, I don’t know what anyone would do with it – the potential fruit of my loins.” Turning the snail shell over, she snorts. “It’s like a grotesque sort of lover’s locket.” But taking the shells from Merrill, she threads them onto the fishing wire, the differing sizes and colours making for a rather heavy neckpiece, but then Hawke has seen her wear bigger. But it’s with some surprise that she watches Isabela unlatch the choker, letting it fall to the depths without a care.

Merrill gives a small cry, but when she makes to dive for it, Isabela shakes her head. “Leave it be, darling. It’s just a necklace.” Then, patting her throat, now decorated with shells, she grins. “This suits me better now, anyway. Goes with the fins.” Then she looks at Hawke. “Now that we’ve got that sorted – are you ready to take the real plunge?”

Hawke rolls her eyes. _It’s good to see this hasn’t impacted your terrible sense of humour._

“Isn’t it? Imagine if I’d offered up my wit, what a nightmare this would be.”

Hawke only shakes her head, but can’t quite suppress her smile. But, shoulders sinking a bit, she looks at Isabela – at her tail, and the underwater world around them, unchanged by their transformation, as though their presence is little more than a ripple in the water – and she’s suddenly terribly thankful she’s not braving the dark depths alone, even if it meant dragging Isabela down with her.

“Don’t worry your pretty head about it,” Isabela says, as though having read Hawke’s thoughts on her face, which she probably had. And that, Hawke thinks, is a small mercy, considering her current predicament. For once it’s not a liability to wear her feelings so openly.

“So,” Isabela says then, turning to Merrill. “Since we haven’t the faintest idea of where we’re going, you get to lead the way. We’ll make up a plan as we go – that’s how we work best. Right, Hawke?”

Numbly, Hawke nods, and tries to will courage into her limbs – _fins_ , she thinks, with something akin to mirth. The shell weighs like a stone in her hand, and she ties the string around her neck with trembling fingers, feeling it settle in the dip of her collar, just above which sits her now useless vocal chords.

“It’s a bit of a swim,” Merrill says, regarding them both with concern, but her gaze lingers on Hawke. “Are you sure you’ll be alright? We can take breaks, of course, it’s not a problem -- we probably should, anyway.”

Now it’s Hawke’s turn to offer assurances, forcing a smile onto her face. _Don’t worry, I’m a fast learner. And how hard could swimming be, with fins?_

If she still harbours doubts, Merrill is polite enough to keep them to herself. And then she’s pointing out their destination, somewhere in the direction leading away from Kirkwall, towards – Ferelden? Hawke can’t be sure, in this world where there are no horizons and no stars to map the way.

And then Merrill is taking off, darting through the water like a minnow, and all that’s left is for them to follow suit.

It’s not as easy as it was, clinging to Fenris, and strange new muscles ache with the strain as Hawke pushes through the water, following the glimmer of green-and-black as they descend into the ever-darkening depths, until they’re too deep to see the surface, and the sun that still shines above. Or at least Hawke thinks it still does, and the fact that she can no longer be sure is what really drives it home, the realisation of where they are – that they’re not just underwater, but in a whole other world.

She tries not to think of Fenris – is terrified to make herself question what he would think of her choice, if he would be happy to see her or angry. Instead she buries her uncertainties beneath the one surety that she’s got, which is the desire to see _him_ , whatever else awaits them.

But even as she latches onto the thought – that she would search the depths to find him, fins or no fins, voice or no voice – she can’t quite stifle the familiar echo of concern within her, that softly chiding voice that sounds so very much like her mother, back when Hawke would come in late from some adventure, attempting stealth, only to find Leandra in the sitting room. And she’d look at her with those keen, knowing eyes that had seemed to see right through her – as though there was a part of Hawke, a rebellious, foolish part of her heart that was not her father’s legacy as everyone thought, but rather Leandra’s, and that could never be kept hidden from her mother. As though she knew somehow, that particular feeling – the desire for _elsewhere_ , although Hawke doesn’t know why she remembers that, now.

_Oh, Marian,_ she’d said then, and Hawke hears it now, years later, and worlds away.

_What have I told you about getting in over your head?_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The faint blue glow emitting from the lyrium crystals follows at the edge of his vision as he dips down through the dark tunnel, knowing the way by heart – every jutting stone and every sharp turn, and what awaits at the end, the glimmer of mage-lights beckoning him away from the dark, although it’s never been a particularly welcome sight.

The chamber is liberally lit – a testament to his master’s power, and an ostentatious one at that, glass bowls of unnatural light hanging suspended along the curving length of the room, holding flames that burn even underwater. Fenris spares them only a cursory glance, swimming towards the centre of the room, the spiralling pillars of the great antechamber rising around him, as though in silent judgement.

In the centre in Danarius, as expected – waiting, although giving no impression of impatience, hands clasped behind his back, his posture one of ease, even though Fenris knows there will be repercussions for his tardiness.

“Fenris,” Danarius croons, a smile stretching across his face, tugging at his greying beard. “You return. Late.”

He comes to a stop, at a safe distance away, although he knows there is no such thing as _safe_ in this place. And it would take little – so very little, for his master to exact his punishment. He feels the promise of magic in the markings, an ever-present memory of pain, like a suffocating pressure, each lyrium-line a torque digging into his skin.

“My apologies, Master. I was delayed.”

Those sharp eyes, revealing nothing – not even a hint as to whether or not his excuse is sufficient. Although excuses never are, for Danarius. But, “See that you avoid it, in the future,” he says, a boon offered – graciously, no doubt, although Fenris knows it for what it is. Not a way to assuage his own guilt, if Danarius possesses even so much as a shred of it, but to remind him who has him ensnared – that the net can be loosened just as easily as it can be tightened, until there’s no room to move at all.

“Were you successful, at least?”

Fenris nods, the words heavy on his tongue. “The matter has been dealt with.” He tries not to think about the blood staining the water. A pet shark unleashed to exact punishment on his master’s behalf – a reminder, of who rules and who follows, in the dark depths.

Danarius grins. “Good, good. One less thorn in my side, as the humans would say. Such peculiar beings.” He shakes his head, almost wistfully. “A pity they can’t last long in our world – I would so love to see what could be made of such a creature.”

Unbidden, Fenris thinks of Hawke, and that earnest interest in his world – that delight at the single glimpse she’d been given. And he’s entertained the thought more than once in the days that have passed since their meeting, of how she would have fared had she been born below, and not above. He wonders if she would have battled the waters as fearlessly, and how she would have looked, tail as quick as her wit, and devoid of that strange, human embarrassment at being uncovered.

But the ache is replaced now with something far more urgent, thinking of Hawke in Danarius’ hands – of lyrium etched into her moon-white skin, or something far worse, if his master had decided she’d make a better experiment than a favoured pet.

If he’s let some of his thoughts slip past his careful mask, Danarius doesn’t seem to have noticed. With a wave of dismissal, he’s turned, the sharp cut of his tail like a knife through the water, and holding all the promise of one. “I have visitors arriving later. Make yourself presentable.”

Then he’s gone, leaving Fenris alone in the antechamber, below the glow of the mage-lights, heart hammering against his chest. And it’s a terrible feeling, this fear, where thoughts of her before have been a balm; an anchor for his thoughts, remembering her warm, bright spirit.

He thinks of the ribbon, safely tucked away – a dry place, to ensure its survival. One of the few allowances that’s his alone, although, Fenris relents, it’s not so much that he’s been allowed it, but that he’s stolen it for himself. He has no possessions, can have no possessions, but this small thing, this memento of her–

It’s a selfish thing, but she’d made him want to be selfish – had made him imagine what it would be like to visit her freely, to sit by the rocks and listen to her voice, and watch her strange, human expressions shift across her face, the wiggling of her toes and her chest heaving with her laughter.

He steels himself with that last image of her, walking up the path to her home with her companion, wearing those strange coverings, and her hair pulling loose of her braid, free of the ribbon he’d slipped from it at a moment’s sudden impulse.

Danarius doesn’t know – _can’t_ know – about the ribbon. About Hawke.

But that at least is a small comfort, in a life where he has few – the certainty that she’s worlds away, so far that even his master can’t touch her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in the deep, Flemeth is sensing the subtle shift of history repeating itself, and is having a mighty good cackle.


End file.
